A massive cleanup and recovery effort got under way this morning in Granbury, where at least six people were killed and dozens injured by three tornadoes, at least one of which was likely an EF-4 with sustained winds up to 200 mph.

"Doesn't get much worse than that," said Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds, who helped escort a tour of the hard-hit Rancho Brazos subdivision.

Deeds said Thursday morning that all of the dead were adults and were in Ranchos Brazos. Another 37 people were injured, with about 100 homes flattened, damaged or destroyed. Separate tornadoes and strong winds near Ennis and Cleburne, where a tornado more than half a mile wide has been confirmed by the National Weather Service, destroyed homes, but no one died.

After a daylong survey, the National Weather Service has confirmed 16 tornadoes, from Montague County down to Ennis in Ellis County.

Although up to seven people are still missing in Granbury, officials said they believe they probably aren't trapped in the rubble and simply haven't notified authorities of their whereabouts. Nonetheless, emergency responders still plan to continue searching the flattened homes.

"I'm very confident we will find them alive and well and that they haven't reported into to us yet," Deeds said Thursday afternoon. "We are going to keep on looking and not going to give up until every piece of debris is turned over."

Officials identified the other six who died as Glenda and Bob Whitehead, Tommy Martin, Leo Stefanski and Marjorie Davis and Jose Tovar.

Hood County Commissioner Steve Berry, who also toured the damage, pointed to empty concrete squares where several homes were stripped to their foundations.

"Where do you hide if you're living here?" Berry said. "How do you take cover there. There's nothing. There's no hiding. This tornado was a monster."

Wednesday night's storms produced baseball-size hail, powerful winds, heavy rain and a fierce tornado that tore through neighborhoods, reducing blocks to rubble and choking the streets with debris. Granbury residents said emergency sirens blared for only a few minutes before the tornado hit.

Around the damage, bits of people's lives -- their possessions and mementos were sprawled out for all to see. A jewelry box with an old photo of a couple in it lay out in some mud. There was an orange chew toy for a dog on Sundown Trail and sparkly high-heeled shoes caught in a twisted chain link fence.

No one was found in the debris Thursday morning. Granbury City Manager Wayne McKethan said crews are now focusing on recovery.

"It really hurts to see what our citizens went through," he said, while standing near a crumbled street sign, "what killed and hurt some of them."

Family members of Tovar said he died inside a friend's mobile home in Rancho Brazos. The force of the storm tossed everyone outside.

“I saw him just minutes before driving by our house,” said his cousin Elizabeth Tovar, who also lives in the subdivision. “My uncle was the one who found him."

At least two others there were taken to the hospital, Elizabeth Tovar said. Three mobile homes at the property, which are owned by Tovar's uncle, and the uncle's house were destroyed, she said.

Jose Tovar, 32, had lived in the Granbury area for years, working for the uncle’s construction company while supporting his wife and three young children in Mexico, she said.

“He was such a nice guy,” Elizabeth Tovar said. “It was just bad luck. He lives in Rancho Brazos too, on the other side that wasn't hit. But he went to check on his friends. By the time it hit them, he was gone.”

The National Weather Service said this morning that the tornado was likely an EF-4, one step below the highest designation on the open-ended Fujita scale, with sustained winds between 166 and 200 mph.

Before Wednesday's storms, tornadoes had killed only three people so far this year in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. It was the deadliest tornado in the state since 2007, when seven people were killed near the Texas-Mexico border.

The Hood County sheriff said Granbury was hit by as many three tornadoes, though weather service surveyors won't be able to confirm that until later.

"It's definitely a nightmare," Deeds said. "We knew it was going to be a tough night in Hood County."

Meanwhile, Granbury High School asked many of its seniors to volunteer at ground zero. The students hoped to serve food at a shelter, while others wanted to foster any of the stray dogs or cats that are roaming Rancho Brazos.

Adults showed up by the truckload, offering trailers to haul away debris and two hands to help families clean up their lives scattered around their subdivision.

"I saw the news this morning, and I was just blown away," said Mark Stevens, a contractor from nearby Stephenville. "We all just want to do what we can."

Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that the State Operations Center was monitoring the cleanup and helping the residents there.

“I’m deeply saddened by the deaths caused by yesterday’s horrific storms," Perry said in a statement. "I commend our first responders, who do everything in their power to minimize the damage and care for the wounded. The thoughts of 26 million Texans are with those suffering today, along with our prayers for a quick and full recovery for those still hospitalized, and for this community as a whole.”

About an hour after the deadly Granbury tornado, three EF-3 tornadoes with sustained winds up to 140 mph touched down around Cleburne in Johnson County. The storm damaged more than 600 homes, including 30 severely, said Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain.

Heavy damage was reported in a subdivision about three miles southwest of town -- but no one was killed or seriously hurt.

Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain said seven people suffered minor injuries. Dozens of homes were likely damaged, and the area was declared a local disaster, he said.

The majority of Cleburne ISD schools were without power after the storm, according to district officials.

Lowell Smith Middle School and Gerard Elementary School, both in southwest Cleburne, "were in the eye of the storm," district spokeswoman Lisa Magers said. The district is still evaluating the extent of the damage, which ranges from broken glass and debris to significant roof damage.

Many of the schools are also impacted by unsafe road conditions because of downed power lines. The district has not yet decided whether school will be held on Friday.

"Really it's about power and the safety of roads," Magers said. "That's where we're at at this point."

Power lines were down along several major streets, and police blocked off some of them with cones and barriers. With many residents without electricity and school canceled, neighbors pushed strollers, walked dogs and rode bikes to check on one another.

Lisa Montgomery's home, across the street from the middle school, was among the hardest hit, with its walls collapsed and roof torn off. Her water-damaged home is littered with her possessions.

She said she's been trying to salvage what she can and call insurance, but the phone line has been busy.

Montgomery, her 10-year-old son Dillion and her dog hid from the storm in the bathroom. They were trapped by the collapsed walls and after the tornado, her older son came to the home and had to kick his way in.

"I was just praying we wouldn't die," she said.

"The only thing that's still up is my living room wall," she said. "It's covered with crosses. And it's still there."

In the ruins of one Cleburne neighborhood, a family roamed a street with a chainsaw and gas can as neighbors crowded around uprooted trees, which lay across every other lawn. Children played on a flattened fence, using it as a slide.

Plastic garbage bins lay ripped in half around the Gerard Elementary playground. An Oncor worked stopped her car in front of a barricade of downed power lines that criss-crossed and blocked a street leading to several demolished homes.

An overturned pickup lay in the parking lot of Smith Middle, where the tornado plucked every air conditioner from the roof and one police officer estimated the damage at $2 million.

Three eighth-graders, enjoying an unexpected day off school, ran around the storm-battered school until a resource officer caught up to them and kicked them off the grounds.

Before he did, they stood at the back of the school where a giant metal bin that holds the school’s athletic gear had blown 100 yards from the field into the back wall.

About 30 miles to the west in Granbury, crews worked through the severe weather to reach people. Deeds said there were some breakdowns in communication at first because so many emergency crews were racing to the most-damaged areas to search houses.

"But they were taking care of business and taking care of the citizens," he said.

Habitat for Humanity of Hood County says it built more than 60 of the houses in the ruined Rancho Brazos neighborhood just outside Granbury. The nonprofit group uses volunteer labor and donated materials to build homes for needy families, who contribute "sweat equity" and become owners.

Habitat president John Quilty said local authorities have made it nearly impossible to get information about the owners' fate.

"It's been incredibly frustrating," he said. "We have not been able to get into the neighborhood to do an assessment."

Quilty said an assessment team from Habitat for Humanity International's administrative headquarters, in Atlanta, is traveling to the Granbury area now.

At an emergency shelter set up by the American Red Cross at First Christian Church, about 20 people woke up in beds that were not their own. Volunteer Jeff Watson said the extent of the damage to the families' homes was still unclear. After breakfast, volunteers will conduct interviews to determine what other services the relief organization should be offering in the coming hours and days.

Many residents quickly left the area after the storm to stay with friends or relatives, so it was difficult to know where everyone went, the sheriff said. Those from the damaged areas were encouraged to register at the Red Cross’ Safe & Well program so officials and families would know who was all right.

The storms rolled in from Erath County around 6:30 p.m., and the weather strengthened over the next hour. A tornado warning and phone emergency notification system went out and the tornadoes hit about 10 minutes later, Reeds said.

Dozens of ambulances and other emergency responders had mobilized, with agencies from many cities standing by to help. Firefighters and police officers were going home to home in search of casualties. Much of the area was without power.

Many of the injured were being treated at Lake Granbury Medical Center, Granbury City Manager Wayne McKethan said. Medstar officials said its crews had taken 17 people to Fort Worth hospitals, which received victims with more serious injuries.

Dixie Lee Hedgecock, a spokeswoman at Lake Granbury Medical Center, said the hospital has treated about 40 patients, whose injuries ranged from minor to serious.

At least 10 tornadoes were reported Wednesday, although meteorologists noted that some may only have been on the ground for moments.

In Ennis, a suspected tornado struck downtown shortly after midnight. About 40 commercial buildings and another 25 homes were damaged, and one person suffered a minor injury, said Steve Howerton, Ennis' city manager. About 25 percent of the city is without power.

Several buildings in the historic downtown had damage to the roofs and other areas, he said. One of the hardest hit businesses in Ennis is the Wall Chinese Cafe, which is missing an entire wall. The owner, overwhelmed by the damage, circled the building, but would not comment.

Tornadoes also were reported in Montague, Parker and Wise counties. A tornado hit the Parker County town of Millsap, about 40 miles west of Fort Worth. Parker County Judge Mark Kelley said roof damage was reported to several houses and a barn was destroyed, but no injuries were reported.

In Granbury, Red Cross volunteers continued to walk around and assess the damage and what victims need most. Spokeswoman Anita Foster said in addition to shelter and meals, volunteers will help hand out gloves, rakes and whatever else families might need to clean up their neighborhood and recover their belongings.

The relief organization has also assembled licensed counselors who will be available to those affected by the storms.

"It's stunning to see what Mother Nature did here," Foster said. "This is truly devastating. We're hoping counselors will help talk people through their grief ... and help parents be able to talk to their kids."

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